In front of a standing-room-only crowd, the No. 4 Penn State women's volleyball team (25-2, 16-2 Big Ten) got one step closer to its second straight Big Ten title with a three-game sweep of Illinois (30-21, 30-28, 30-19) Saturday night.

The Nittany Lions capped off an excellent senior Saturday by picking up where the football team left off. The crowd, which was already energized from the football team's 37-13 victory against Michigan State, was able to get into the match early as Penn State started off game one with a 9-1 run. The run included three blocks and a kill from freshman middle hitter Melissa Walbridge, who set the defensive tone early with four blocks in the game one win; she finished with eight overall. The Lions are now 24-0 in matches during which they win game one.

The freshman had some help in this match, as senior outside hitter Syndie Nadeau, in her last regular season home match, continued her terrific play of late.

Nadeau was the Lions only outside hitter to have success against the stellar Illini block. Nadeau finished the match with 13 kills and a .455 hitting percentage, which was astronomically better than her fellow Penn State outside hitters. Senior Ashley Pederson and freshman Kate Price -- who were shut down by the Illinois (18-8, 10-8) tandem of senior Jessica Belter and redshirt freshman Jen Hyns (four and nine blocks, respectively) -- finished with abysmal hitting percentages of negative .040 and .031, receptively.

"I though we did a good job on Belter," Penn State coach Russ Rose said of the Illini outside hitter who finished with a .111 hitting percentage. "But they did a far better job on our outside hitters. So I was very upset with the way our outside hitters played, but I was extremely happy with the way [sophomore middle hitter Cassy Salyer] played."

The bulk of the offense came from the middle, with the aforementioned duo of Walbridge and Salyer. Salyer, who is still recovering from a lower leg injury, was finally the dominating player about whom Rose was excited during spring practice. Her chemistry with junior setter Sam Tortorello has been getting better each week and it showed Saturday every time Salyer slammed home a kill on the slide play. Salyer finished with 14 kills, one error, and an attention-grabbing .565 hitting percentage.

"The whole idea of getting the middles involved is if we can ball handle and get the ball to Sam, because I think she's the top setter in the conference," Rose said.

"That doesn't always mean she plays like it, but I think between her and [junior libero Kaleena Walters] we have two of the best players at their positions in the conference."

Tortorello is the most important piece of the Penn State offense and her ability to spread the ball around would rival that of a quarterback in the West Coast offense. Tortorello and Walters' steady play is one of the main reason the Lions are one win away from their second consecutive Big Ten title and there is one coach in the conference who believes that they could do more that just win the conference.

"Their coach knows a thing or two about volleyball, so I think they will go pretty far in the tournament," Illinois coach Don Hardin said.